DEFINING COPYRIGHT LAW FOR THE DIGITAL CENTURY: ENCOURAGING INNOVATION & CREATIVITY

Policy

French Republic

1. Preface

For the past two centuries, the Berne convention had been suitably integrated in the copyright law,
but in the past few decades many difficulties have arisen due to the innovation of digital
technologies. This has become the target to illegal activity and, due to unclear boundaries and
jurisdictions in the digital world, they have proved to be unresolved. Many countries adopted their
laws to the new requirements of the digital world, but only some of them coordinated its specifics.

2. Intellectual property in the French Republic

Intellectual property protection and enforcement in France is heavily affected by international

treaties and multilateral agreements. French law on intellectual property rights is the result of
national statutory and regulatory provisions, statutory provisions implementing international and
multilateral agreements and European regulations having direct effect in France as a Member State
of the European Union.

France has been working on intellectual property laws since 1883, when it signed Paris Convention
for the Protection of Industrial Property. In 1886 France entered the Berne Convention for the
Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.

As a Member State of the European Union, France implements and enforces EU legislation. Directives
also aim at harmonizing national laws and in this respect, Directive 2004/48/EC of the European
Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the enforcement of intellectual property rights has
notably helped improve means of enforcement of intellectual property rights in France.

The intellectual property rights in France most commonly relies

 Patent protection
 Design protection
 Trademark protection
 Author’s rights protection
 Trade secrets protection and other exclusive data

3. Digital intellectual property in the French Republic

France introduced in 2006 DADVSI ( Law on Authors' Rights and Related Rights in the Information

Society), which implements the WIPO treaty (World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright
Treaty). Beside of the introduction of global license, enabling e.g. peer-to-peer sharing in exchange
of fee, the law makes the DRM circumvention criminal.

In 2009 French republic passed HADOPI ("Supreme Authority for the Distribution and Protection of
Intellectual Property on the Internet"), which is called “three-strikes anti-piracy” law. Part of HADOPI
was revoked in 2013 when France’s Constitutional Council declared access to the internet a basic
human right.
4. Country´s position

Sharing of the content of multimedia starting with the spreading of computers, their miniaturization
and improvement, introduction of fast internet and performant smartphones, created the possibility
of copying and sharing media, music and other content, but it was insufficiently covered by the laws.
Pirated copies and illegal sharing of the content were also supported by the content´s high price and
unavailability of official sharing platforms.

The copyright law became an important instrument against the organized criminal groups and some
undemocratic regimes, who were and are systematically violating the copyright law. The last example
of that can be observed in the Russian Federation, who allowed sharing of software, multimedia and
other content created in western countries as a reaction on the imposed sanctions on the Russian
Federation.

This is one of the reasons why the copyright must be enforced by reformed DRM. Observation of the
copyright violation must be coordinated by special offices which will be coordinated across countries
and will enforce the copyright law.

The French Republic believes that the implementation of principles of the EU law and of the law of
the French Republic regarding Intellectual property and DRM in other UN countries would strengthen
the moral and economic rights in the world. The cooperation with different organizations such as
WIPO and others is necessary in order to achieve this goal.

In the opinion of the French Republic the transfer of economic rights of the intellectual property
must not be limited as well as the consumer right cannot be over the economic right. Although there
might be some exceptions e.g., loosening of patent protection for the production of medicaments or
vaccines used in the underdeveloped countries, who cannot afford to pay the “original products”. All
these exceptions must be approved by all member countries of the treaty.
 

Sources

Intellectual property - Wikipedia

Digital rights management - Wikipedia

Cross border enforcement of intellectual property rights in the EU (europa.eu)

Intellectual Property Rights and Digital

Intellectual Property Helpdesk (europa.eu)

European intellectual property law - Wikipedia

Chapter 2. DRM and the Law | Roncevic | Library Technology Reports (ala.org)

The Intellectual Property Review - The Law Reviews

Enforcement and cooperation between Member States (europa.eu)